GITSEGUKLA — On October 14, 1971, teenager Virginia Sampare and her cousin Alvin were hanging out near an old bridge on Highway 16, outside their home town of Gitsegukla.

The day was cool, so Alvin hopped on his bicycle to go home and get a jacket. He told Virginia he'd return shortly.

On his way back, as he cycled toward the highway, he heard a pickup door close; by the time he reached the road, Virginia was nowhere in sight.

She has never been seen again.

That is all that her brother and sister, Winnie and Roddy Sampare, have been able to piece together about the mysterious disappearance of their younger sibling nearly four decades ago.

"It was just so strange how she disappeared. Everyone looked and they didn't find anything. Not a piece of clothing," Winnie said in a recent interview in Gitsegukla, a native community between Terrace and Smithers.

"It still feels like it just happened yesterday."

According to brief stories in The Vancouver Sun in 1971, RCMP officers, civil defence personnel and local residents began searching the dense bush around the village about a week after Virginia vanished.

No trace of the pretty teenager with the delicately chiselled features and almond-shaped brown eyes was found.

After eight days, the effort was called off.

Her brother Roddy, who was then 23, helped with the official search, and also combed the local river and nearby mountains.

"I think the whole community took part in that search. There were people cooking, and others in the bush," Roddy recalled. "They came up with nothing."

Virginia was born in 1953, one of six kids in her family. She was a quiet girl who loved to sing teasing songs to her sisters, Winnie recalled. She worked at a cannery.

Winnie said her sister would usually let someone know her plans, and it would have been out of character for her to run away.

Sampare's file was re-opened in 2001. New Hazelton RCMP Cpl. Don Wrigglesworth re-interviewed her family and some witnesses, and gathered samples to create a DNA profile for the missing woman.

Wrigglesworth noted that Virginia vanished after the sudden disappearance of her boyfriend, and before his body was found drowned in the Skeena River. Virginia was upset that cold day and had left the house without a jacket.

"No one knows where she went or what she did: If she committed suicide. If she relocated herself back to Vancouver. She's had no contact with anyone," Wrigglesworth said. "There is speculation of wrong-doing, but no proof."

Virginia was depressed at the time by the disappearance of her boyfriend, Roddy concurred, but he doesn't believe his sister committed suicide. "My mom and dad were always preaching we couldn't do anything to harm ourselves."

The Sampares feel someone must know something about their sister, and are begging that person to come forward. "We just keep hoping and praying she's alive," Winnie said.

They believe adding Virginia to the official Highway of Tears list could bring a break in the case and possibly generate some new tips. "We asked the police when we went to Prince George, and we didn't get any response," Roddy said.

Sampare's file meets two of the three pieces of criteria required for an unsolved case to be put on the Highway of Tears list: She is female and she was last seen within a mile of the highway.

However, Staff Sgt. Bruce Hulan, who runs the E-Pana investigation which is looking into the Highway of Tears cases, said foul play had to be confirmed in a case before it was considered for the official list.

In five of the 18 cases on the list no body has been found but, Hulan said, in each of those files investigators are convinced the victim was murdered.

Roddy Sampare said he was pleased with the initial police response to his sister's disappearance, but he remains frustrated that he doesn't have more answers. He is determined to keep searching.

In recent years, the RCMP collected DNA from Virginia's family members, in the off chance they might find evidence of her on Port Coquitlam serial killer Robert (Willie) Pickton's farm.

Roddy hopes the expansion of DNA science will lead to answers for his family. "That is the biggest thing I keep hoping with the new technology that is out there now," Roddy said.

Virginia's disappearance hit their parents hard, Roddy said.

When their mother was dying in 2001, she kept thinking Virginia would visit her on her death bed. Their father is haunted by his daughter's ghost, often thinking that he's caught a glimpse of her or had a conversation with her.

When Roddy and other family members visit Vancouver, they search the sea of faces for a middle-aged woman who resembles Virginia, or a younger woman who could be her daughter.

"It would be nice for us to have closure. If she's alive it would be nice to see her again. And if she's gone, it would be nice to put her to rest and have a feast and put a marker up."

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Siblings hope to put sister to rest

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